Person:Ebenezer Mudgett (1)

Ebenezer Mudgett - leader of sawmill owners in Weare, during the Pine Tree Riot

John Sherman, Deputy Surveyor of New Hampshire, ordered a search of sawmills in 1771-1772 for white pine marked for the Crown. His men found that six mills in Goffstown and Weare possessed large white pines and marked them with the broad arrow to indicate that they were Crown property. The owners of the mills were named as offenders in the February 7, 1772, edition of The New Hampshire Gazette. The mill owners hired lawyer Samuel Blodgett to represent them, who met with Governor Wentworth. When the governor offered Blodgett the job of Surveyor of the King's Woods, he accepted, and rather than getting the charges dropped instructed his clients to pay a settlement. The mill owners from Goffstown paid their fines at once and had their logs returned to them. Those from Weare refused to pay.

On April 13, 1772, Benjamin Whiting, Sheriff of Hillsborough County, and his Deputy John Quigly were sent to South Weare with a warrant to arrest the leader of the Weare mill owners, Ebenezer Mudgett. Mudgett was subsequently released with the understanding that he would provide bail in the morning. The sheriff and deputy spent the night at Aaron Quimby's inn, the Pine Tree Tavern. Many of the townsmen gathered at Mudgett's house, some offering to help pay his bail, others wanting to run the sheriff and deputy out of town.

At dawn the next day Mudgett led between 20 and 30-40 men[3] to Whiting's room and assaulted the offending officials. Their faces blackened with soot, the rioters gave the sheriff one lash with a tree switch for every tree being contested. They then cut off the ears and shaved the manes and tails of Whiting and Quigley's horses, after which Whiting and Quigly were forced to ride out of town through a gauntlet of jeering townspeople.

Whiting engaged Colonel Moore of Bedford and Edward Goldstone Lutwyche of Merrimack, who assembled a posse and returned to arrest the perpetrators. By this time, the townspeople had fled. After searching, they arrested one of the men involved in the assault, and the others were named, ordered to post bail and appear in court. Eight men were charged with rioting, disturbing the peace, and "making an assault upon the body of Benjamin Whiting." Four judges, Theodore Atkinson, Meshech Weare, Leverett Hubbard, and William Parker, heard the case in the Superior Court in Amherst in September 1772. The rioters pleaded guilty, and the judges fined them 20 shillings each and ordered them to pay the cost of the court hearing.

1. ↑ Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849. (Topsfield, Mass.: Topsfield Historical Society, 1910)
   1:229.

   Mudgett: Ebenezer, s. William and Dinah (Davis), July 2, 1736.

2. ↑ Ebenezer Mudgett Minor, in Massachusetts, Probate Court (Essex County). The Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts. (Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1916, 1917, 1920)
   Case # 19065, 13 Apr 1733.

   link Ebenezer Mudgett Minor minor son of William Mudget late of Haverhill: Dinah Heath requests that Lt John Clement of Haverhill, yeoman be named "guardian unto my two children that I had by my former husband W^m Mudget late of Haverhill, husbandman Decease, viz. t Ebenezer Mudget aged seven years tha second day of July next. John Mudget aged four years the second day of June next.... and my husband James Heath consenting that it should be so"
   
   Dinah Heath (signed)
   James (X) Haeth (his mark)
   
   Why does she surrender her own sons?

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 Ebenezer³, in Mudgett, Mildred Dennett, and Bruce D. Mudgett. Thomas Mudgett of Salisbury, Massachusetts and his descendants. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1969)
   2.

   link Ebenezer³ Mudgett (William², Thomas¹) born 2 Jul 1726 Haverhill moved to Weare in 1765, died there before 1784; married Hampstead, NH Miriam Johnson (dau John and Sarah (Haines) Johnson 10 Oct 1752. lists their children.

4.   Wearehistoricalsociety.org
   The Pine Tree Riot.

   link

5.   The Pine Tree Law, in Webster, Kimball. History of Hudson, N.H. : formerly a part of Dunstable, Mass., 1673-1733, Nottingham, Mass., 1733-1741, District of Nottingham, 1741-1746, Nottingham West, N.H., 1746-1830, Hudson, N.H., 1830-1912. (Manchester, N.H.: Granite State Pub. Co., 1913)
   364+.

   link

6.   We Had a Riot, in Http://www.nhptv.org
   Background: The Pine Tree Riot - Weare, NH, April 1772 .

   link

7.   Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American ..., Volume 1
   183.

   link

8.   William Johnson and his Descendants, in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   34:60-66@66, 1880.

   34-66 link Genealogy of Miriam Johnson wife of Ebenezer Mudgett

9.   Melinde Lutz Sanborn and Dean Crawford Smith, The Many Families of Dinah (Davis), (Mudgett), (Heath), (McCarrigan) Robinson , in Tibbetts, Charles W, ed, and New Hampshire Society of Genealogists. The New Hampshire genealogical record. (Dover, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Genealogical Society )
   7.3:133-138, Jul 1990.

   Ebenezer³ Mudgett son of William² Mudgett and Dinah Davis born 2 Jul 1726 Haverhill died before 1784; married Hampstead, NH Miriam Johnson (dau John and Sarah (Haines) Johnson. lists their children. Children: Moses James b 17 Feb 1754, Stephen, Sarah, Ezra, Achsah, William, Miriam, Jesse, John, Hannah and Eben the first six born Hampstead and the rest in Weare.